ABSTRACT
The American Sunday School Union, like the American Home Missionary Society referred to by Baird in the previous extract, was part of a cluster of associations formed from the time of the War of 1812 onwards expressing the common ground of Protestant evangelicalism. These societies, and others such as the American Bible Society and the American Tract Society were perceived as creating the framework for interdenominational redemption of an increasingly populous and geographically expanding society in which the proper moral order of communities could no longer be assumed likely to be guaranteed by social deference. Baird's quantitative measures of Sunday school development are indicative of the 'business' frame of mind in which the evangelical united front approached its projects.
